fiction was no paradise, reality no boon
by Toraptor
Summary: Light glinted off the chipped edge of a rusted blade. The decayed metal added insult to the injury—a cheap shot in the midst of a strategy to kill a man who tried to change the world. He had tried to take the twisted ugliness and turn it into something beautiful, until the twistedness had taken him, too. [Major Character Death, Hurt No Comfort, WhumptoberDay17-"Stay With Me."]


**Warning: Character Death, Minor Descriptions of Corpses, Hurt No Comfort**

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_**fiction was no paradise, reality no boon**_

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Pale and broken trees scattered the area, the skeleton ribs of a fallen titan stripped of leaves. At the center of a gullet filled with bodies was a man.

A sheen covered his eye that had not existed since he was twenty five, since before he looked at the world through the eyes of his dead brother. One eye was blinded, but the other was perfect. And yet, no matter how many times he blinked, the sheen remained. The rain kept falling.

Rosy curls spread over gray, sandy earth. It was the last bit of color in a world coated in ash.

Light glinted off the chipped edge of a rusted blade. The decayed metal added insult to the injury—a cheap shot in the midst of a strategy to kill a man who tried to change the world. He had tried to take the twisted ugliness and turn it into something beautiful, until the twistedness had taken him, too.

It was a grief that left him breathless, a heart wrung dry. Madara's heart.

He pulled the blade out of Hashirama's chest. The hilt had broken off and his hand bled as he pulled it free. Dark blood pooled sluggishly, but did not fall. Hashirama's body had long since cooled, his eyes gone dull. He wasn't very much Hashirama at all, really. His lips were blue. Cheeks were hollowed out, the glow of life had been leeched out of him until he looked like the pale branches that bracketed them.

It was no second chance. He woke to the punishment, arrived in time to see the axe fall. When his hopes rolled on the ground, they fell into a void from which there was no return. The only point was to forcibly remind Madara that his all too human heart still felt pain.

He ghosted a hand over the side of Hashirama's face, pushed back dark locks of hair.

In one life, the life that mattered, he had gathered all the ugly thoughts and colors and locked them inside. He never let Hashirama see the cacophony within, and then blamed him for not looming deeper. Mired so deeply in grief and bitterness, it had been easy. It had been vengeful and terribly vindicating—and poison to his wounded, fragile soul.

The cracks had grown until he shattered. By then, there was no one who noticed to pick up the pieces. They only cut their feet as they walked passed.

All the colors he never showed Hashirama—the bloody crimson of the people he killed, the crystalline blue of his tears, the lavender skies of his fake, perfect world—were bursting to be let out. He wasn't real, either, was dead to the world. At any moment he could dissipate into the fog rising off the damp ground. He couldn't make things better. He couldn't share a drink in the afterlife, or even find rest.

There wasn't a life for him there. A world without Hashirama was no world worth living in, and though Madara knew what was going to happen next, he crumpled. He wanted to cry and lash out, tearing Hashirama's body to pieces and then stitching him together again. He wanted to cry so badly he could scream from the feeling—but he was denied. Head pressed to Hashirama's chest, he listened for a heartbeat he knew wasn't there.

He breathed in deep and let the world go still. There was nothing but the patter of rain on his back. His hair hung down his back, draping through the dirt and soaked up the blood.

Then, he dragged himself up. He formed a seal with shaking fingers—and then another, and another. He had plenty of chakra, after all. He'd been storing it for something much grander.

He felt the tug of chakra leaving him. It flowed into Hashirama, pushed itself into his veins and seared his skin. Madara's chakra had always been abrasive and forceful. Hashirama wouldn't mourn. It was far too late for that, the memory of their childhood—so _innocent_, so simple, just two children skipping rocks, and all they ever wanted was a place to love and be loved, was that too much?—was something buried under decades of duty, a brokenness that infected the world.

Drops of oil spotted his vision. Madara swayed. Somehow, he'd expected it to take longer. He'd expected more time to regret, and it struck him as bitterly hilarious that even as he was _ready_ for death, he didn't have enough time.

A healthy bronze crawled over Hashirama's skin as his blood was pumped through a renewed heart. Already, his chakra, lifegiving and nurturing, was healing him. His mouth parted, he gasped a breath, his back arching off the ground. The movement tossed Madara away.

He landed on side and tried to move. His arms and legs had melted to the ground. A static darkness was crawling over the world, over the sight of Hashirama as he sucked in his second desperate breath. Madara tried to rekindle the jutsu and failed, his hand dropping to the ground by Hashirama's shoulder. It was up to Hashirama to survive.

Impossibly, Hashirama was conscious enough to register the movement. He turned his head and Madara saw hazel eyes, a fall of dark hair. A drugged sort of confusion turned into a mask of horror.

Madara wanted to say something. It tugged at his brain, a burning urgency, because he had _seconds_. He wanted to say something like, _Enjoy your life_ or _I'm sorry_ or even _Take care of the village_. But he wanted so much more than that. He still wanted, even after dying so many times, after failing and having his truths plunged through his back.

"Stay with me," he said, because he was selfish. At least until he died, _stay_.

Hashirama was already up and his hands were roving over Madara, glowing and green, but not even all the chakra in the world could save him.

If nothing else, Madara took comfort from the fact one of them could still cry.

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**notes: *lays face down eating bugles* you ever just... get sad? **


End file.
